A man should be loyal
though life to friends,
return gift for gift,
laugh when they laugh,
but with lies repay
a false foe who lies.
The Havamal, stanza 42

Some people mistake the noble virtue of Truth for honesty. Honesty is simply telling the truth. Truth encompasses more than that. It's about seeking the truth, knowing the truth, and living the truth. But there are many gray areas and sometimes, virtue can be served in unexpected ways. Besides keeping sworn oaths, another core practice of Asatru is common sense. The Havamal is all about common sense. The All-Father is a god of wisdom and he knows that sometimes, being honest is impracticle and can open you up to weakness which can be exploited by enemies. For example, being honest all the time could endanger your friends or family, and that clearly goes against the noble virtue of Loyalty. It's not important so much that you analyze and try to live up to all of the ethical writings of Asatru. What matters is that you get the big picture.

That has some definite points, but at the same time there also appear to be some things that are flat-out dishonorable. Look through the HÃƒÂ¡vamÃƒÂ¡l and see if you don't find a few things that seem cold and sneaky. This may be the result of known Christian meddling, in fact I definitely think some of it is. I agree though, the big picture is more important.

It's definitely possible that the Poetic Edda in general in general and The Havamal in particular were meddled with by christians, but I'll add that they were both written in Iceland which was always a very tolerant country. Iceland was the last country to submit to Christianity and within the last thirty or fourty years, Asatru has again been recognized as an official state religion alongside Lutheranism. Another thing to consider when reading The Havamal is that when you read it, it becomes evident that the advice given in it is based on mistakes made by the All-Father himself. I do believe that he was a man at one time, and so made mistakes just like any other.

The stanzas in The Havamal that say it's "okay to lie" do not say it's okay to break sworn oaths. The stanzas advize lying and manipulation as one way to overcome a foe. They don't give free reign to go around pathologically lying to everyone. I for one would never swear an oath to a foe, but I would never lie to a friend. Unfortunatley, we can't just go around raiding villages any more. Subterfuge is a much more legal way to defeat an enemy, especially in a democracy like modern America or medieval Iceland. Odhinn is a god of trickery as well as war after all.

On another note, I agree that mistakes made by The Gods are there to illustrate the fact that the Wyrd applies even to them. Look at Frey. He's going to be killed out of hand by Surtr because he gave up his sword for the love of a giantess. Look at all of the mistakes Loki made. That's one of the things I love about Asatru and consider a core ideal. The Gods don't point down at us and call us sinners like the god of some other religions do. We do not bow to our gods. They are above us, but they are not our masters. They are our mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers.

[QUOTE=Draupnir]If one makes himself your enemy and has nothing to stand on, I wouldn't even say he needs defeating. He's done it to himself already.[/QUOTE]

This obviously isn't always the case with enemies. I personally would stop at nothing short of hurting an innocent to harm an enemy if I thought it neccesary and practical. Historically, Asatruar haven't even shown this much restraint. Just look at the Germanic invaders of the dark ages as well as the Vikings. Asatru has no direct prohibitions against this type of violence, and I would have it no other way. I believe I now understand your objections to The Havamal.

Well, I meant that on a specific level which I failed to classify. If someone calls himself your enemy in, say, an argument (not a debate, a full-fledged argument), but doesn't do anything to fight or back up his ownn point, he was defeated before he ever started. My objections weren't to the HÃƒÂ¡vamÃƒÂ¡l, but to possible distortions therein.

Going back to these alleged distortions in The Havamal, why would a christian, like the monk Saemond if in fact he was actually a christian and not only posing as one for political reasons, want to preserve a book on the ethical principals of his forefathers if he were ashamed of them? If he were not ashamed of them, why would he try to alter them? There are many principals in The Havamal that most christians would agree with. Assuming the Havamal was intentionally altered by christians to make the pricipals of Asatru seem dishonorable, why would these be left in alongside all of the fabricated "dishonorable" stanzas? It doesn't make sense. That's not to say it's impossible. I'd just say that it's improbable and I personally don't believe it happened. I like the Havamal just the way it is.

I like the HÃƒÂ¡vamÃƒÂ¡l as well, but comparing with known removals/distortions in other books (like the fact that Freya lore was almost completely removed and that certain events were made to sound more Christian [such as Loki getting married when scholars are fairly sure it originally said he had sex]), you have to wonder at least. Just because the Christians may've agreed with some parts of the Eddas and the HÃƒÂ¡vamÃƒÂ¡l, that doesn't mean there were other parts they didn't like (such as said feminine presence). Just some thoughts there.

True. It is an almost definite posiblilty that certain mythological stories were altered to coincide with Christian beliefs such as the end of the Ragnorok story and, as you mentioned, many stories involving Freya. But what you seem to be implying is that The Havamal was altered to make it seem dishonorable. That doesn't seem to be consistant with other alterations made by Christians to other parts of the Eddas and Sagas.

Not completely. I mean that some bits of it really make me wonder, due to how it's said, whether or not it was put in a different context to suit "good & proper" Christian thinking of the time. I could say "I'm sorry", but if someone who doesn't like me wants to make sure I'm put in the place he feels I should be, he may change it to "I'm sorry...psh, yeah right". So it's not so much the words as it is the context they're in (or were put in).

Hmmm... I'm not quite understanding you here. Are you trying to say that something is lost in translation or that you believe that the content is basically the same, but the stanzas are somehow worded differently to make the meaning seem more "hollow"? Could you give an example to illustrate your point?

I do think there are some minute points missed in translation, but that is no fault of anything but the translation's. Yes, the context may very well have been changed simply to sound less "Heathen" (in the Christian sense of the word) and more like themselves. I mentioned Loki and his sex affair, which was almost certainly changed to "married". A Christian wouldn't allow such a thing as pre-marital sex in print (or in life for that matter), so naturally they would find a way to change it, even if they do so as little as possible (in their eyes anyway). Another good example can be seen in that scholars are pretty well aware that many immoral and dishonorable acts of the Gods were either due to distortions to make it known that these Gods were evil or added entirely.

Like I said, it just doesn't seem consistent. Why would they try to make them look more immoral in the Havamal, and less immoral in the other parts of the Eddas (sighting the Loki example). I do believe that the parts of Eddas and Sagas were altered to look less "heathen" as you put it, but I don't believe that the Havamal was altered, and I don't see anything dishonorable in it.